All the times Prince Charles has spoken about his love for the environment

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April 22, 2020

Prince Charles has always been ahead of the crowd when it comes to environmental awareness. For decades, the duke was advocating on behalf of Mother Nature, warning the world of climate change well before it was the widely-known concept it is today.

Charles's love for the environment goes way back. As he was heading back for his second year at Cambridge in 1968, he said: “I cannot tell you how much I miss Balmoral and the hills and the air – I feel very empty and incomplete without it all.”

While addressing delegates at the Saving the Ozone Layer World Conference in 1989, he said: “Since the Industrial Revolution, human beings have been upsetting that balance [of nature], persistently choosing short-term options and to hell with the long-term repercussions.”

The Prince of Wales received the 10th Global Environmental Citizen Award from Harvard Medical School's Center for Health and the Global Environment back in 2007. As such, he addressed the crowd with an inspiring – and, at times, funny! – speech about the importance of protecting the earth.

He began by talking about his film Earth in Balance, which he compared to Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth – both films focused on the effects of climate change.

“I made that film because of my personal and profound sense of unease, which even then dated back almost 20 years, about the way that we, as mankind, were treating the environment on which we all ultimately depend,” he said. “Since then, of course, every passing year has seen further evidence emerge of the damage we are doing to this poor old planet the only one we’ve got that sustains life in such a miraculous and well- ordered way.”

The prince spoke at the Copenhagen climate change conference back in 2009, asking the audience to consider what they could do to make the world more liveable.

“Take a moment to consider the opportunities if we succeed,” he said. “Imagine a healthier, safer and more sustainable, economically robust world. Because if we share in that vision, we can share the will to action that is now required.”“The conclusion I draw is that the future of mankind can be assured only if we rediscover ways in which to live as a part of nature, not apart from her,” he continued.

During the Our Ocean conference with the European Union in 2017, Charles called catastrophic hurricanes a direct consequence of climate change.

“If the unprecedented ferocity of recent catastrophic hurricanes is not the supreme wake-up call that it needs to be, to address the vast and accumulating threat of climate change and ocean warming, then we – let alone the global insurance and financial sectors – can surely no longer consider ourselves part of a rational, sensible civilization,” he said to the crowd.

At the conference, it was announced the EU would devote more than US$820 million to protecting oceans with over 30 initiatives.

“While we should be relieved that the health of the ocean is now understood, alongside rainforests, to be one of the essential prerequisites for our physical and economic survival, I wonder if the ocean’s fragility is yet truly grasped and how susceptible it is to the impacts of our economic activities,” he continued. “We must never mistake [the oceans] for a new frontier for endless economic exploitation.”

During his last day on the royal tour, he said young people deserve action to help them out of an “appalling crisis” caused by “potentially catastrophic global warming.” He also said: “We demand the world’s decision makers take responsibility and solve this crisis.”